GUEST POST: AHDR’s Teach and Learn! workshop series for educators

With spring finally having taken a hold of the island, fresh approaches to peacebuilding are blooming and a whole host of activities gathering pace on the Peace it Together front.

This week, we hear from Maria Siakalli of AHDR, who offers us a guest post on Teach and Learn! – a series of free trainings to expose and equip Cyprus educators to the latest techniques in history teaching.

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The first in a unique series of teacher training workshops, took place on Friday, April 6, at the ever-busy Home for Cooperation.

The workshop was led by experienced teacher trainers, who provided innovative ways to teach history and multiperspectivity, and introduced the latest AHDR supplementary materials for educators: “Learning the History of Cyprus through Artefacts – Teachers’ and Students’ Books”, “The Ottoman Period in Cyprus”, “Introducing Oral History”, “Thinking Historically about Missing Persons”, “Nicosia is Calling” and “A Look at Our Past”.

The turn-out was encouraging and attendees went away with much to put to use in the classroom.

“The seminar was very interesting … I believe it should take place more often and in a more extensive way,” noted classical studies teacher Sophia Arnaouti, adding: “I’m willing to apply both the book materials used in the seminar, as well as all the ideas provided in my own lessons”.

For his part, Charalambos Solonos, also a classical studies educator, stressed that: “schools should show more interest in this initiative, embrace the book materials and support their implementation in school classes”.

Also appreciating the content of the training, Dilek Latif, a Near East University teacher stated: “I find these training seminars to be very useful, and the book materials offer sufficient guidance on how to implement these in the classroom.

“The books are precisely what teachers in Cyprus need because they provide an alternative approach to teaching history. They are a source of information that enhances history teaching, are student-centered and promote independent thinking. ”

The consultants and the AHDR Board were pleased with the participation of so many educators in the first workshop, and hope the experience will help them use these invaluable resources in their classrooms.

Two subsequent training workshops are set to take place on Friday, April 20 at KTOEOS in the Turkish language, and on Thursday, May 10 at the Home for Cooperation in the Greek language.

While the workshops are primarily aimed at history teachers, all interested educators are welcome to attend.

Certificates of attendance will be provided and every participant supplied with a free teacher’s pack of educational materials.

Lastly, the training is offered free of charge, but potential attendees must register for the workshop of their choice by completing a form which can be downloaded from the AHDR website here.

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Definitely an opportunity that’s not to be missed!

Peace Exchange thanks Maria for sharing the news about the workshops, and encourages its readers to keep the guest posts coming.

After all, your efforts for peace and reconciliation are what this blog is all about – and there’s always room to host your adventures, activities and insight here.

That’s all for this time, but we’ll be back again with more good stuff very soon.

Until then, enjoy the weekend and… see you in the next post!

A Greek version of this post can be found here, and a Turkish version here.